I am in full agreement with you. And I would love to discuss my views with anyone at Google who wants to talk with me. That is my main objective here — to get Google and Facebook to recognise the risks and negative consequences of arbitrating on the ‘Truth’ of any article.

My point in this article is that Google have started down that path now and as long as they continue to influence search results on that basis, people will be able to criticise Google on the basis of their judgements on reality.

Most complaints about ranking algorithm changes are about SEO tactics and what people think is more or less fair as a system for sorting content. But this time they are operating outside the realms of pure SEO discussion, and trying to use real world facts as part of their algorithm.

Anyone can disagree with Google’s decisions about how to weight certain backlinks, and when to punish pages for paid links or whatever — but you have to accept that at the end of the day, that is Google’s decision. Google chooses how their algorithm works, and we all live with that.

But as soon as Google uses real world facts within their algorithm, then people will feel completely justified in arguing with them. “I don’t know anything about algorithms, but I know for a FACT that the earth is flat!”

This changes the discussion completely.